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DISCRIMINATION

Pole loses discrimination fight against Swedish zoo

A Polish employee who took a Swedish zoo to court for discrimination has lost his case as the district court ruled on Monday that he had reported the alleged crimes too late.

Marcin Wilk, 26, claimed that Polish and Bulgarian employees at the zoo on Öland island received lower wages and were ill-treated during his stint there in 2011.

He claimed that the zoo was run like an “old-fashioned feudal system,” with a strict top-down structure.

In a recording of his dismissal, played up in court in December 2012, a manager is heard screaming at Wilk:

“You think you’re better than others. Take your things and go to hell. You’re behaving like a damn monkey.”

Wilk claimed that he and other Poles worked 10-hour days without a weekend or time off while the zoo’s Swedish staff worked a regular 40-hour week.

While Swedes were paid 14,000 kronor ($2,160) per month, the Polish workers got 6,800 kronor plus room and board, he said.

“I was discriminated on the basis of my nationality. But everyone who works with discrimination issues knows that it is hard to prove. Discrimination is hidden,” Wilk told the Barometern newspaper.

Wilk was asking for 1 million kronor in damages, but now that the district court has ruled that the alleged crimes had passed the statute of limitation, he will be obliged to pay the zoo’s legal bills.

TT/The Local/at

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DISCRIMINATION

‘Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority’: Truth commission releases report

The Swedish state should issue a public apology to the country's Tornedalian minority, urges a truth commission set up to investigate historic wrongdoings.

'Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority': Truth commission releases report

Stockholm’s policy of assimilation in the 19th and 20th centuries “harmed the minority and continues to hinder the defence of its language, culture and traditional livelihoods,” the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset said in an article published in Sweden’s main daily Dagens Nyheter.

“Amends must be made in order to move forward,” it said, adding that “acknowledging the historic wrongdoings” should be a first step.

The commission, which began work in June 2020, was to submit a final report to the government on Wednesday.

Tornedalen is a geographical area in northeastern Sweden and northwestern Finland. The Tornedalian, Kven and Lantalaiset minority groups are often grouped under the name Tornedalians, who number around 50,000 in Sweden.

The commission noted that from the late 1800s, Tornedalian children were prohibited from using their mother tongue, meänkieli, in school and forced to use Swedish, a ban that remained in place until the 1960s.

From the early 1900s, some 5,500 Tornedalian children were sent away to Lutheran Church boarding schools “in a nationalistic spirit”, where their language and traditional dress were prohibited.

Punishments, violence and fagging were frequent at the schools, and the Tornedalian children were stigmatised in the villages, the commission said.

“Their language and culture was made out to be something shameful … (and) their self-esteem and desire to pass on the language to the next generation was negatively affected.”

The minority has historically made a living from farming, hunting, fishing and reindeer herding, though their reindeer herding rights have been limited over the years due to complexities with the indigenous Sami people’s herding rights.

“The minority feels that they have been made invisible, that their rights over their traditional livelihoods have been taken away and they now have no power of influence,” the commission wrote.

It recommended that the meänkieli language be promoted in schools and public service broadcasting, and the state “should immediately begin the process of a public apology”.

The Scandinavian country also has a separate Truth Commission probing discriminatory policies toward the Sami people.

That report is due to be published in 2025.

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